Bills would help keep golden years golden

Published 8:00 pm, Thursday, June 10, 2010

Greedy relatives or covetous “friends,” who claim to be caring for an older loved one, stripping bank accounts and using a lifetime of savings to their own personal advantage.

According to a study published in “Clinical Geriatrics,” the clinical journal of the American Geriatrics Society, persons over 50 control at least 70 percent of the nation’s household net worth and they are frequent targets for exploiters.

Victims are typically female, frail and mentally impaired; 75 percent are between the ages of 70 and 89.

Michigan Legislature currently has before it a package of bills that would protect Michigan’s 1.7 million older adults from financial abuse.

The Michigan Office of Services to the Aging (OSA) is urging our representatives to pass these bills, and we encourage readers to contact their representatives and ask them to follow their heart and vote to protect some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

The four bills would:

• Require training for financial institution staff on financial exploitation, how to spot suspicious activity and how to report suspicious activity when detected.

• Expand the definition of abuse of vulnerable adults to include financial exploitation.

• Require financial institutions to inform account holders and provide written disclosure of the rights of joint account holders, so that those allowing access to their funds understand that joint account holders have the legal right to use the account and funds contained in it as if it is their own money.

• Require courts to consider appointment of a conservator if a person under a guardianship has assets of more than a certain limit ($10,000). This is to prevent potential financial exploitation through a guardianship.

These bills would help protect seniors by creating a firmer definition of financial elder abuse, giving government agencies and law enforcement a greater ability to act on suspected cases.

It’s a tragedy that anyone should be faced with financial ruin in what should be the golden years of their life, and we hope these bills become laws that work to protect our seniors from this fate.